Hagen’s Fish Market Celebrates 80 Years As 4th Generation Takes Over

PORTAGE PARK — The sweet smell of maple syrup and brown sugar hung in the air as Hagen’s Fish Market employee Rob Partynski drizzled honey onto the rows of salmon inside the shop’s smoker on a recent Tuesday morning.

Hagen’s, and the business’s iconic hardwood smoker, are celebrating 80 years in Portage Park this summer.

While there have been some building renovations and menu additions over the decades, Hagen’s commitment to its customers and to quality fish has remained the same, owner Eric Johnson said.

That consistency can be traced to the business remaining in the family for four generations. Eric Johnson, the great-grandson of one of the founding Hagen brothers, took over the market at the start of this year.

The 27-year-old Johnson — whose parents, Julie and Scott Johnson, previously ran the shop alongside his aunt, Tammy Jesse — said Hagen’s has always felt like home.

His grandparents and his great-grandparents lived next to the shop, and he grew up across the street.

“It was the family complex,” he joked.

Eric Johnson worked his way up from washing barrels and hanging up chubs in the smokehouse before getting his official Hagen’s timecard at 13.

A lot of Hagen’s regulars have watched Eric Johnson grow up over the years, he said.

He left the family business for a few years to go to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, but returned and started working at the shop full-time about five years ago.

Eric Johnson said he knew his parents were ready to leave the business so he spent the last few years learning the ins and outs of all the different departments.

“I didn’t necessarily plan on taking over, but I could not stand the thought of Hagen’s going to someone outside the family,” he said. “It was either step up to the plate, or let it all crumble.”

The Smokehouse Survives

Over the past 80 years, the neighborhood surrounding Hagen’s has changed a lot more than the store itself, Eric Johnson said.

In 1946, the Hagen’s brothers and their wives came to Chicago from Washington Island, Wisconsin. Their father, who was a commercial fisherman, mortgaged the family home so his sons could start their own store.

The only land they could afford was on the outskirts of Chicago, an area that was still mostly farmland at the time.

The brothers built a smokehouse and a small storefront and got to work.

Today, Hagen’s is home to one of the last surviving natural hardwood smokehouses in Chicago. The only other one is at Calumet Fisheries in South Chicago.

Local fishermen still bring their fish to Hagen’s to have it smoked, though Eric Johnson said less of the business’s wholesale fish deliveries come from the Great Lakes. Invasive zebra and quagga mussels have depleted food supplies for native fish, leading to a decline in their populations.

Every week, Hagen’s gets fresh fish shipments from around the world.

Eric Johnson said he’d like to eventually start shipping Hagen’s products across the country, maybe through some sort of smoked fish subscription box.

He also wants to get the Hagen’s name out there by partnering with other local businesses, doing more events and hosting pop-ups.

From noon-9 p.m. Aug. 29, Hagen’s will be holding an 80th anniversary celebration in the market’s parking lot with live music and, of course, food. The celebration will be a sort of trial run as he hopes to host regular events in the parking lot next summer, he said.

“My list of things I want to do doesn’t get shorter no matter what I cross off,” he said with a laugh.

Eric Johnson said he wants to ensure Hagen’s is around for another 80 years.

“What we have here is unique, it’s super magical and I want take it to its peak,” he said.